ICE agents have reportedly claimed to be police officers to gain consent to enter a person’s home – a tactic that is viewed as unethical, but within the powers granted to the officers. Civil rights groups supported Kalra’s bill, looking to stymie the Trump administration’s promise to use any and all available tools to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. Many groups fear Trump will expand deportations to include all undocumented immigrants, their families and relatives.   read more

Thirty-nine men who were strip-searched in public by police from 2002 to 2009 will collect $4.6 million from the City of Oakland, but their lawyer says the city still hasn’t come up with a policy to prevent future abuse. The Oakland City Council voted this week to compensate the men after a federal judge ruled that the searches were unconstitutional and awarded $1 million in damages and attorney fees to two other men who sued.   read more

A long-awaited U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission public hearing with San Onofre nuclear power plant operator Southern California Edison, scheduled for this week, was abruptly cancelled. The DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Doheny Beach begged off, citing the prospect of 500 agitated citizens descending on the facility and disrupting the hotel’s ambience.   read more

If you are out of work and having problems getting your jobless benefits claim processed by the state, you’re probably not going to get a lot of satisfaction by calling the California unemployment office on the phone. Your chance of reaching a human being on the telephone at the Employment Development Department (EDD) is slim and the state agency ranks near the bottom nationally in processing claims, according to a November report by the California State Auditor.   read more

As of Wednesday, 10,064 people have signed a petition for California to secede from the United States and create its own government, joining residents in more than 30 other states who find the elections last week unpalatable. If a petition gathers 25,000 signatures within 30 days, it will be reviewed by the Obama administration. But 150 signatures get you a searchable posting on the whitehouse.gov website.   read more

Governor Jerry Brown, reaching outside the park service community, went career military instead and picked retired Major General Anthony L. Jackson, 63, as director of the troubled Department of Parks and Recreation on Tuesday. Jackson replaces Ruth Coleman, who resigned in July after $54 million was found stashed in department accounts while 70 state parks faced closure because of budget cuts.   read more

Every dollar spent on policing in Sunnyvale, California (pop.: 140,095) yields only 20 cents in crime reduction benefits, while every dollar spent on policing in Gary, Indiana (pop.: 80,294) yields $14 in such benefits. Sunnyvale boasts low crime rates, while Gary has one of the nation’s highest crime rates. The authors also confirm a controversial finding made by previous investigators that police reduce violent crime more than property crime.   read more

Google executives have defended the scanning of users’ Gmail communications―for the purpose of targeting ads at them―since the service was launched in 2004. And people have grumbled about online email privacy for almost just as long. But a suit filed in California seeks to have the courts decide whether the practice is a violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA).   read more

The good news emerging from the most recent audit of the troubled $1 billion-a-year department responsible for overseeing affordable housing in Los Angeles is a lack of any significant illegal shenanigans. The bad news, according to City Controller Wendy Greuel’s audit, is that it’s hard to track anything in a department “fraught with inadequate internal controls and beleaguered by managers who did not prioritize the organization’s finances.”   read more

When the U.S. Air Force couldn’t get permission from California to stash radioactive waste from the McClellan Air Force Base in a local landfill, it didn’t have to look far for an out-of-state solution. It sent the residue from radium-illuminated aircraft instruments to a hazardous waste dump operated by US Ecology in Grand View, Idaho, 70 miles from Boise, according to the publication California Watch.   read more

The election last week marked the first time in California history that write-in votes were not permitted on the state ballot. Sort of. A person could run as a write-in candidate, but was required to have notified the Secretary of State in advance declaring themselves running for office in order to be eligible.   read more

Cosmo the God―6-foot-7, 220-pound California hacker extraordinaire―is the mastermind who, with his group UG Nazi (short for Underground Nazi Hacktivist Group), pioneered computer techniques that allowed them to take down NASDAQ and CIA.gov, hack their way into user accounts at Amazon, BestBuy, Apple, AOL and PayPal, and wreak general havoc throughout the internet.   read more

California is poised to open the world’s second-largest carbon market, in an effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions and lower pollution levels to the 1990s, but opponents are still fighting for fundamental changes days before launch.   read more

A federal judge, responding to a complaint that Proposition 35 is unconstitutionally overbroad, put the human trafficking initiative temporarily on hold.   read more

An 11-year-old boy in Palo Alto—banned for 11 days from Jordan Middle School for carrying the cystic fibrosis gene, although showing no symptoms—was allowed to return after school administrators reconsidered their decision.   read more

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has given its stamp of approval to a $120 million settlement reached in March between California and New Jersey-based NRG Energy over gouging of state energy consumers during the 2000-01 Enron-led energy crisis.   read more

In cash-strapped California, you wouldn’t think it would be hard for the government to spend the money it has. But, the state apparently left $49 million in interest on the table last year when the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) requested, and the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) approved, bond sales to provide cash beyond its immediate spending needs.   read more